


What the Loa Saw

by TheBlackestFrost



Category: American Gods (TV), American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Angst, F/M, Sex, Sexual Tension
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-11
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-27 15:56:50
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,598
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21394810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBlackestFrost/pseuds/TheBlackestFrost
Summary: What the Loa saw during Ways of the Dead.
Relationships: Baron Samedi/Maman Birgitte, Laura Moon/Mad Sweeney
Comments: 18
Kudos: 56





	What the Loa Saw

**Author's Note:**

> For ettume, for the phrase “barely passable boner.” My thanks.

_The Loa are watching._

_The girl at the table is thin, delicate, quiet though it’s clearly not her usual state of being. _

_The man at the table is sporting a shiner and locking his teeth. They are pleased to find him in their home again, even if he’s here seeking a boon. Still, he is welcome; Samhain is so very close to the Fete Ghede, how could they not want him there, so different but so the same (and Maman Brigette holding memories of both). _

_He has been eating voraciously but is slower now, tense and frustrated._

“I need to turn this one’s clock back…so I can retrieve my property and,” they see the next words cost him. “…send her back to her husband.”

_Maman Brigette, formerly Brighid, Loa and lover focuses on the girl at the table. Her life wounds and soul scars are bare and clear; she’s not hiding, not well enough at least._

“She’s a cheater, like you.”

Baron Samedi doesn’t hide his interest. Why would he want to? “Better and better.”

Brigette is not done. “In death is her true love…but she betrays him also.”

_She sees her then, the girl, bolting after a shard of light, a dream that she had no interest of in life and no true understanding of in death. Betrayal after betrayal. _

“Chasing after what she cannot have.”

_The man at the table, their old friend, is too focused on trying to hold himself together to notice the turn of phrase let alone think on it too deeply._

He’s too busy swallowing against the clear interest in Baron Samedi’s eyes, too busy barking up the wrong tree. “The favour is to me, Baron, not to her.”

Baron’s eyes narrow, gleam, and the Sweeney pushes ahead. “Do we have a compact?”

The answer is not straightforward. “I think we can make a trade.”

“What kind of trade?” The girl is wide eyed, missing what passes between them.

Baron is hungry. “I trade in truth – you give me truth, and I give you what you want. Do we have a compact?”

They all know she won’t refuse, not after her skin has prickled and her lips have parted and she’s tasted food, real food, for the first time in so long. He doesn’t smile, he doesn’t need to. “Good.”

Brigette smiles. “Time for business and pleasure. Sweeney, mon amour, comin’?”

He’s not, he’s worried, he knows what is to come, and it’s making his chair hard to leave.

She doesn’t try to soothe him, just reminds him. “Resurrection’s Samedi’s business, and we’re not needed here tonight.”

_She all but drags him out, and when he turns to look at the woman sitting at the table, she doesn’t look back at him._

***

_Baron Samedi is mixing a potion. _

_His lady may be the one who heals, who nourishes, who cares for the dead...but he controls life...and is becoming increasingly amused by the girl in front of him and her willingness to be so very lost._

“You betrayed him long before your marriage vows. You betrayed him when you told him you loved him in the first place.”

_She wants to be deeply offended but her indignation is shallow at best and he can smell the truth beginning to warm on her skin, to mingle with the hot air around them, sizzling like water on a hot pan. _

_It begins to seep into the fabric of existence between them._

“Poor poor Laura Moon; so many lies she cannot sleep, so many vows she cannot keep.”

_She tries to throw Brigette back at him to defend herself and he smiles._

_His lady is his sun and moon and all those sparkly stars in heaven and le cadeau de sa vie and of course he will indulge himself in mortal women again and again. It's the difference between sampling varied morsels and knowing the warmth of your kitchen at home. _

_He knows his home very well._

_The truth is simmering now and he’s watching her, this crossroad dweller, as he offers up the gift of resurrection stoppered and ready for the taking barring just one key ingredient. _

“La vrai sangue de l’amour.”

_Maman Brigette is proud, he can feel her tickling away at the corner of his psyche, foul mouth and ready smile waiting to do her part. _

“I have to find that?”

_Find that? No child, you have to _admit _to that. You have to _ask_ for that._

He chuckles as she continues, still fine being so very lost. “Right, because why would this be easy?”

_He’s not sure how to make things any simpler for her, not sure how a human can be this obtuse or so deeply in denial, even when faced with her own mortality._

_That’s ok, he’s done his part, and he has a trade to secure._

_Her re-sensitised body sparks to hunger quickly, and he can taste it now, the truth against her skin, ripe and ready for plucking._

“For payment I ask only for truth.”

_She offers herself for taking, as he knew she would._

***

_The drums echo and she can feel the heady, heavy thrum in her body._

_The heat, the energy, it’s spilling out. She can taste the dead girl’s refusal to understand, she can taste the Baron’s readiness to take part in the body and truth on offer._

“We honour the dead with flesh and sweat, maybe a little blood no? Give back for what we take.”

_She can feel it, tendrils of power and smoke carving their way around the building, finding sweat and blood and growing in intensity and power. _

“I see you and the Baron are still eating on the side, huh?”

_He’s more human than he realises, but there’s still some god in there, still some sense of honour and integrity, of asking before participating in a broken promise. _

“We eat what we want.” She takes in his huge frame, the red hair of her homeland. “And I want you, again.”

_It’s all there, the waves of power rising, ready to crash into them, and she moves over him sensuously, ready to continue this offering and see what happens to these two misguided creatures who crossed the Ghede Loa's threshold. She runs lips and hands over him only to be met with stillness where there should be painful hardness. _

_She looks again in his eyes, really looks, and realisation pricks even more deeply._

_There is more truth to be found here._

“Oh, I see, somethin’s changed. You’re too gone on the dead girl to do your part…”

“The fuck I am.” But he knows what she sees. He is not the girl, cloaked in denial and refusal to believe. He is too open and too exposed to try and hide.

_She’s been in this game too long not to do her part in this magic, to generate this power, especially when her part involves a man who goes harder than a freight train, so she picks her pathway._

_Baits him._

“I can taste it. Salty.”

_She sees his interest shift as he senses her little game._

“You tryna pick a fight with me, is that it?”

_He’s dangerous now, in this moment, and she feels that thrill. If a sensuous moment you can’t create, then a violent one will do the trick just fine, and she’s more than willing to play this game, so she takes the opening._

_The slap cracks against his cheek and then he’s up, pressing her against the wall, tasting her and turning her and pushing into her and she feels so much spill over into the ether that she can’t help the cry escaping her lips._

_The power takes over the building and the lights are dimmed to nothingness._

***

They have played in the astral plane so many times before they've lost count. 

The heady loss of grounding.

The shift from existence to another space, another state of being.

Maman Brigette grins against Baron Samedi’s mouth as his partner in this dance moves to her preferred consort. 

The Loa are playing.

They watch to see what Sweeney sees. 

_The body falling into his arms is new._

_Thin and delicate and smooth skin where there would otherwise be scars._

_She’s staring up at him, eyes wide, and he can’t move, can’t breathe, can’t exist until she’s given some indication that she sees him, knows who he is, knows what this means._

“I trade in truth…you show me your truth, I give you what you want.”

_She stares into shocked hazel eyes, watches him freeze, watches him wait._

_She knows this is hers to give, hers to choose, hers to decide. _

_Knows instinctively that his choice has already been made, and it’s up to her to own what happens next._

“In death is her true love…but she betrays him also.”

_He waits and then he’s not waiting any more._

_She moves first, curving and shifting, writhing against him, and he’s unable to look away from her face. Her cries are amplified, silenced, splintered, wrapping around them and disappearing into parts of his soul where pieces of memory and hope are missing. She folds into him, pulls against him, shifts around him and bleeds into those spaces only to solidfy and take up residence there permanently._

_She comes apart, falling into thousands of pieces and coming back together to stare into his eyes._

_He feels owned._

_He feels loved._

***

_The Loa are watching._

_They are unseen, shifting through the plane, here and away. _

_They watch as the girl wakes, shocked and alone, pulling her dress over her shoulders and standing up gingerly. Already her body must be losing its brief illumination, nerves deadening and breath nothing more than a cheap trick._

_They watch as she grabs the bottle full of hope, of opportunity, and Maman Brigette feels Baron Samedi’s pride in his work, runs her fingers over his neck._

_They watch the big man enter._

“Hey….by yourself?”

_They watch as she stares, struggles to hold something back, they watch as betrayal crosses over her face_.

"I don’t know why you came back here, I’m leaving." 

"Where are you off to?”

"Away from you."

Her anger and hurt are like fat spitting from a hot pan, connecting and causing flinches quickly hidden. 

"What, no, wait!" 

He grabs her arm and they watch them both freeze, a shared memory between them noted and immediately tossed aside. 

"Don’t make me hurt you."

_"Ohhh, the claws."_

_"She's wantin' blood."_

“Might I remind you that we had a deal? You get your life back, I get my coin.”

_Maman Brigette feels a swell of pride, the relief of minor belief. _

_“He knows you can do it. He’s so sure of you, mon coeur.”_

_“Oui, but is she sure of him?”_

“Well I didn’t get my life back did I so fuck you, deals off, I’m keeping your fucking coin."

"Like fuck you are. What happened, it didn’t work?" 

“Oh please, bullshit.”

_They see so much hurt in her shaking frame, so much betrayal being concealed so very, very quickly. _

_His surprise is sharp as he realises they’re truly on different sides in this._

“What?”

“Bullshit...fucking bullshit! This is all Wednesday. All of this, all the way back to the casino, he sends you to fuck up my plan and then he sends you to fuck me."

_There’s a look that crosses his face that might be relief, as if he’d wondered if she’d know it really happened, as if he’d suspected she would deny and hold back her belief in what occured last night._

_The relief doesn’t last long as she starts to strike out, hard._

“I mean I knew you were his bitch I didn’t realise you were his whore as well.”

_“Such words, such pain.”_

_“Mon cheri, you know as well as I that this is sparring. They’ll be in each other’s arms before the minute passes. After all, she has the potion, non?”_

“What happened last night is not part of some grand plan, you stupid _cunt_.”

He bellows the last part like he knows it will make her angry and Brigette clutches Baron’s shoulder to stifle a laugh. _“You were sayin’, mon coeur?”_

“They’re death Loa; they fucked _us._”

_He’s so indignant, trying to make his point, to show her they’re on the same side, to say he had no part in tricking her into whatever version of events she seems to be creating for herself, and it’s too much for the Loa._

_Baron can’t help himself, grinning and chuckling and Maman Brigette collapses against him in heavy laughter._

_They have not seen such ridiculous miscommunication in many years, just Sweeney's luck that a woman who drives him this crazy could drive him this crazy._

“And I don’t do Wednesday’s errands because I like him. I do it because I fucking owe him.”

_His accent thickens when he’s this angry and he’s looming above her like a monster but she holds firm, made of grit and denial and more than a little fire of her own._

“I hate that one eyed cunt more than you will ever know.”

_It's like he's begging to be seen. _

_There’s a moment now, the Loa see it. _

_If she asks, if she opens up, she could learn something about him. About her. About their place in all of this. She could build a bridge and he would already be halfway across it and they could try. Fumblng and faltering but together, and they might stop biting at one another long enough to let something real grow from the seeds rooted so deeply in both of them they're becoming a part of one another._

_He is exposed and willing to go further and s_ _he just needs to ask. _

_Instead she hammers nails into the coffin around him without understanding where the wood came from. _

“You do Wednesday’s errands because no matter how much you claim you want a war to die in, you’re too much of a fucking coward to find your own.”

_They see her words land like a weapon spearing him through the chest. _

_She sweeps out, word barbs delivered, the hard shell she's been trying to maintain shaky but holding. _

_He is alone. _

_The Loa watch as he curses her in Old Irish and can’t get his lighter to work and the whole thing would be funny if the room didn’t feel so very, very cold._

_“And what now, mon coeur?”_

_“Mon cheri, we met our deals. She has all she needs.”_

_Maman Brigette shakes her head. “She don’t see it that way.”_

_He smiles at her, warm and wide. “She can only see it that way; that’s why she’s running.”_

_His hands are slipping up the side of her dress and she sighs, low and deep. As the bar becomes empty they begin a dance of their own, old and rich and full of hunger._

_The Loa stop watching._

Outside a woman pushes tears off her cheeks, furious at the waste of moisture. It is harder to wipe the memory of his face, awed and open, from her mind.

A man walks in the opposite direction slowly, painfully, as if wounded. Soon his anger will heat him back up, loosen his movements and let him stride and push and decide to take his life out of the hands of others.

But for now he walks, injured, the new pieces of his mind hardening like concrete, a painful strengthening of the cracks in his psyche. Reminding him of feeling owned.

Of being loved. 

**Author's Note:**

> Not sure this one hit the marks I wanted it to hit, but voila.


End file.
